Society

It was Janet Tracey’s family who brought about a change in the law regarding Do Not Resuscitate notices on patient’s notes in hospital. Thanks to their efforts, hospitals will now have to consult patients and their families before instructing medics that they shouldn’t go out of their way to provide life-saving treatment. Mrs Tracey had made perfectly clear that she wanted to be in on her own case; didn’t matter – she got a DNR notice anyway. I’m not sure whether I was in quite this situation a couple of years ago when my mother was in St Mary’s Paddington after a fall. She succumbed to an infection which she

Like all good select committees, the Education Select Committee is rarely a helpful chum of Michael Gove. Its warnings on the reform of GCSEs, for instance, played a part in one of Gove’s biggest volte-faces. But its report this morning on ‘underachievements of white working class children’ (a group it then narrows to ‘poor white British boys and girls’ who are on free school meals) recommends a course of action not dissimilar to that which Gove is already taking, set in motion by the Blairites. It says: ‘This problem [of underachievement] must be tackled by ensuring that the best teachers and leader are incentivised to work in the schools and

Greg Dyke was right with that throat-slitting gesture, when England’s world cup group was announced. Seeing the quality in some of the other groups gives you an indication of how much harder we have it. Which isn’t to say we’d have breezed through, mind. But I suspect we would have beaten Russia and South Korea, who played like two mid table Championship sides. Which is pretty much what the Koreans are, really. Incidentally, my wife remarked of the Koreans, as the teams lined up, “they’re not lookers, are they?” So: tomorrow. What do we do with Mr Potato Head? Put him in the centre or leave him out altogether? I’m

Was anyone terribly surprised by the Social Attitudes Survey published today suggesting that most people thought that, in order to be British, you should be able to speak English? Some 95 per cent thought so; the only curiosity being that in 2006 the figure was as low as 86 per cent. Nor indeed is it terribly odd that, as the authors point out, the threshold for Britishness is getting higher. As the survey from January points out, three in four people think immigration numbers should be reduced; the question of identity has to be seen in that context. One interesting aspect of the survey is the decrease in the numbers

So farewell, then, Tywin Lannister, you truly were the people’s Hand of the King. But this being Game of Thrones, it was never going to last, and now you’ve been shot with a crossbow by your dwarf son while sitting on the toilet. Not how you envisioned it all ending, I imagine. The final episode of season 4 has left us bereft at the thought of another year to fill with our empty, meaningless lives; it saw Jon Snow going off to kill Mance Rayder, the rather likeable leader of the Wildlings, a suicide mission that would entail Snow breaking the rule of hospitality, which is especially sacred in Westeros

Britain’s skills crisis was addressed by the country’s leading educationalists today at The Spectator’s half-day conference, Giving Britain the skills it needs. Matthew Hancock, Minister for Skills and Enterprise, delivered the key note speech. In it he outlined his plans for better preparing young people for employment. ‘I’m determined that apprenticeships  become the established route for all school-leavers who don’t go to university; not as a second option,’ he said, before adding that ‘demanding higher standards of people isn’t setting them up for failure, as we’ve often heard from the left.’ Hancock’s speech focussed on the need to establish how technology must be used to ‘spread opportunity.’ Schools and colleges should